The North Watch: Chapter Three Preview - The Spawning Pool

The
Green Walker, and its minions, constantly strive to expand their
command of the land beyond the borders of the Yawchaka Jungle. On the
western border their advance is stemmed by the fires and magicks of the
Narumbeki Legions. To the north and south things are more fluid.
Creatures and humanoids, controlled by the Walker, are dispatched into
the MBazha mountains carrying seedlings, cuttings and pods of the
corrupted flora of Kush. When the Legion is not present, the land
itself, aware of the violations traveling across the surface, resists as
well. Weather, predator or the landscape intercept and kill the
couriers, their packages left to dry and rot.

But
sometimes the Walker succeeds. In the Greening Valley of the MBazha
mountains, minions fall into mountain pools and are swiftly consumed by
their deadly cargo. The mutated flora fills the pool and grows beyond,
forming a writhing hedgerow about the living-giving waters. Branches and
leaves intertwine to form a dam, like such made by beavers, to capture
the streams, especially when turgid with snowmelt, and hold the waters
through the drier parts of the year.

The plants themselves are
relatively defenseless. But unwary animals, who might drink of the
downstream runoff, could be pricked by the hedgerow’s vines or may even
consume the bright flowers, are turned into warriors for the Green
cause. Giant elk or fierce badger froth at the mouth at the chance to
defend the Spawning Pool. Their dead foes are pitched into the depths to
feed the rotten core at the bottom.